


Pressure Points

by SusanaR



Category: The Lord of the Rings - All Media Types, The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Blackmail, Bribery, Courage, Dervorin - Freeform, F/M, Faramir - Freeform, Gen, Slavery, Women Being Awesome, emancipation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 17:09:43
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 704
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6997135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SusanaR/pseuds/SusanaR
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sayyida bint Esmail is about to make her move, and earn her freedom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pressure Points

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: Taking place late in the Third Age, some twenty years or so before the time of the Ring War. This skates the line between underage abuse of minors, but keeps it implied and nothing is graphic, so I've gone ahead and posted it here without those warnings. But if things like this bother you, even if they're not graphic, then maybe skip this one.

The sounds and smells of Umbar harbor floated through the window into the elegantly appointed townhome. It was furnished with the finest imported lacquer and wood. Jade cabinets from far-off Khand and oak bookshelves from the forests of Gondor and Arnor lined the walls. Despite the pretty appointments, it was a torture chamber. Sayyida bint Esmail knew it well, and had since she was first given in servitude to the master of this house and others like him at the age of 9. 

Sayyida had waited years to win her freedom. Years of pain, degradation, and fear. But even monsters have their weak spots, and she had learned them. 

The little girl, only nine years old, whom their current host, Oligarch Ludovico, had just sent running from the room in tears. She was a weak spot. 

"Tell me, great Sir," Sayyida whispered, as Ludovico leered at her, "Does Oligarch Efisio know that your pretty new pet is his granddaughter?" 

Ludovico reeled away from her as though she'd struck him with a hammer, though she'd laid not a finger on him. A decade and a half of hard-won control helped Sayyida conceal her triumph. At last, at last, she had one of the men who tormented her exactly where she wanted him. Gaping like a dying fish on the floor before her, his fear making him weak and her strong. 

"If you kill me to silence me," she continued, standing and smiling coolly, "then you will never know who I told, or where I wrote down these simple words which could sentence you and all you hold dear to destruction." 

"Please," her tormentor begged, "Please, little flower. I will give you anything you wish to buy your silence." 

"My freedom." 

"It is yours," he promised, "and gold, and jewels." 

"My freedom, and I get to take anything I wish with me when I go. And I want your protection from anyone who would seek to bring me back here to Umbar." 

"Done, anything," he babbled, "if the Spider learns I've kept his only flesh and blood from him, and what I've done with her, then my life and the lives of my sons and grandsons will be worth less than nothing. You know how cruel he is, little flower." 

"Far better than you," lied Sayyida, for Oligarch Efisio was only cruel in the sense that a storm was cruel. True, he was the most dangerous man in Umbar, but it was because of his lack of personal cruelty, and his dedication to what he saw as the good of Umbar. When Efisio called Sayyida and the other young female slaves to serve him, he asked only that they recite poetry and dance. He never tried to touch them. He had few vices, the Spider, yet he'd had more men murdered than any other monster Sayyida had ever met. And Sayyida knew much of monsters. She had been wise enough not to try and deal with Efisio. Instead, Ludovico cowered before her, and his shame would keep him silent long after she was gone. Efisio was by far the more dangerous man, and Sayyida told herself, and would tell herself for decades, that it was only because of that danger that she made her next request. 

"And the girl." 

"What girl?" 

"Efisio's granddaughter. Isra. I want her, too." 

"Take her," Ludovico offered, "I never want to see her again." 

Sayyida took her freedom, and the many baubles she'd 'earned' over the years. She took Isra, to keep her safe from Ludovico and his like, safe enough that Efisio would not see Sayyida as an enemy should he someday come to learn of Isra's existence. And when bandits stole Isra from Sayyida some ten years later, Faramir and Dervorin helped Sayyida to steal her back. Isra later married a wine merchant from South Gondor, and her sons served in the court of the new-made Prince Amrothos and Princess Rajiya of Taduin. And, by then, Sayyida was able to admit to herself that it had been her own honor and kindness which had made her rescue Isra, and not only her self-interest. Faramir made her realize it, and then Dervorin wouldn't stop bothering her until she admitted it.

**Author's Note:**

> If you want to read more about Sayyida, she is in "Lucky," with Faramir and Dervorin, in the Tales of the Third Age in Twilight, link below: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/214277/chapters/397547
> 
> She is also in "Firsts," with Faramir, also in the Tales of the Third Age in Twilight, here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/214277/chapters/472599
> 
> She is also, with Dervorin and Faramir, in the very dark (but not graphic) ficlet "I just may kill you yet," here: 
> 
> http://archiveofourown.org/works/503877


End file.
